Under Ice
by charname
Summary: Molly Hooper is Moriarty.


I'm impressed by the way some fans can take a fan-theory and reexamine canon with the agenda of proving that the theory is correct. Sometimes this seems to require absolutely fantastic mental gymnastics; I thought it looked really fun. I misinterpreted what 'Molliarty' meant and decided that I wanted to do that with the theory that Molly is Moriarty. I think I managed fairly well.

There are various things worth warning for in this, mostly what you would expect given the subject matter. I want to explicitly warn for implications regarding the sexual assault of children and the abetting thereof in this fic. There is nothing beyond implication here, but it's pretty strong and intended, so please be cautious if that would upset you.

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**Under Ice**

Molly meets the man she will make the face of James Moriarty online.

He likes children – a lot – and is not quite as anonymous as he thinks he is.

He's perfect. He's an actor – a fairly good one – he's intelligent enough – he works surrounded by children and hasn't been caught out yet – and he's so responsive to her manipulations that even when he realises how deeply in her web he's caught, he says he's happier than he's ever been.

She finds that while people may be most loyal when you know their deepest secrets, they're most helpful when they know you can provide them with their deepest desires.

Molly likes to think of herself as a provider. There are other words, but they're not very nice.

Molly needs a man – and what a joke that is, where has she heard that before? – because not everything can be done electronically and Molly needs a face. Preferably a face with stubble, because you need balls to succeed in this line of work, and so many of the simple-minded thugs she deals with think they need to be literal.

She gets another layer of security and the satisfaction of seeing more of her plans unfold perfectly when fewer fuckups second guess the consultations they've paid for and ruin everything.

The man now answering to Jim Moriarty, for his part, gets more satisfaction than he'd ever thought possible.

And Sherlock, whom she finds out about before he finds out about her, Sherlock, who is brilliant enough to be beautiful, Sherlock dances to her tune.

Molly adores Sherlock. He's brilliant – almost as brilliant as her – and sometimes he sees through even the best of her plans. She's more fond of him than she's ever been of another person.

She believes him to be the most interesting man she's ever encountered. He believes her to be convenient.

She is convenient. It's wonderful. She loves working in the mortuary. She gets to cut people open and stick her hands inside them and no one minds. She can do it in front of police, and no one tries to stop her. It is less than ideal that they are already dead when she does, but she can say that they've died of one thing when she's helped them die of another, and no one thinks to correct her. It is a valuable ability.

When they're available – and when he demands them – she gives Sherlock parts of people he'll never figure out were victims of murders he'll never know occurred. It's not technically allowed, but then so little of what she does is. It doesn't matter; there are reasons she never gets into trouble for it.

What he wants is a puzzle, a game, and that is exactly what she creates. She thinks of him, sometimes, as her best client. He's certainly the one who gets the most enjoyment, aside from herself.

She makes the puzzles because that's what she does, because that's the only way to stave off the boredom, to make life worth living. She'd do it with or without him, because creating the plan – more even than watching it come together – is the most truly beautiful thing she is capable of. It's art. It's beyond what's displayed in galleries and played in concert halls. It's incomparable.

Still, she's ecstatic that she's found someone else to appreciate it properly, to draw in and play with. She smiles every time she feels the need to account for him in her plans.

Sherlock lacks a certain type of finesse. He gets his hands dirty, publicly, and he doesn't refrain from showing that he enjoys doing so. He beats corpses and takes home bags of what were people, and he appears to like that no one really knows why.

Molly flirts with Sherlock. She wouldn't mind if he'd respond in kind, but it's probably more fun because he never does. It's the only time he ever looks at her as though she might be dangerous. She likes the rebuffs; they're the most attention he knowingly gives her. They're almost seamless. The girl she pretends to be would dwell on them, turn them over in her mind wondering whether he was dismissing or simply misunderstanding her. That's really very cruel of him. She likes that.

It rattles him, provoking casually cruel comments exceeding his normal fare. Pushing her back in a way that should only draw a girl like her closer. There's frailty in that, in his failure to know the rules of social engagement well enough to play by them.

That's not to say that he doesn't know them at all. He understands the game well enough to play at playing it. He compliments her when he wants something she has, implies that she can be pretty. Maybe he lets it put him off the game he's better at. It's always convenient – never suspicious – that she always has the interesting bodies.

She almost always lets him persuade her. She loves to watch him work, and he's never shy about what he's learned. She gains a greater advantage from seeing how he pieces the information together than she loses by giving it to him. He's good enough that he'd find a way even without her assistance and sometimes – rarely, but sometimes – he exclaims over something she's missed. It betters her.

She needs to be bettered. This is not a profession one can afford to get lazy in. Someone gets lazy, someone loses track of one employee, and someone's out hundreds of thousands of pounds, at the least. Someone loses respect, and power, and that's far more damaging.

There are aspects of General Shan that Molly respects, but Moriarty cannot tolerate failure. Moriarty is as strong as Moriarty is perceived to be, and any failures Moriarty tolerates would become the failures of Moriarty. She makes Shan's termination quick, but unmistakable. Under other circumstances the act might be seen as one of aggression, but the Lotus accept it for what it is. If one of her people had made such a remarkable mess in their territory, she wouldn't object if the situation were resolved with far more emphasis than a quick bullet.

Business continues, flowing even more smoothly than it had.

It gets mundane. It doesn't get boring – she always has to stay several steps ahead of everyone else; if she's bored then it's due to her own inadequacy – but the challenge is lacking.

She does the only acceptable thing. She pulls the game up to the next level.

She takes the man she's made Jim Moriarty, and she prepares him for Sherlock. He has to be perfect. There can be no microphones feeding him lines – Sherlock would notice – and she can't give him planned stock responses alone – Sherlock would throw them off. He has a script, but he has to know his character well enough to improvise on it.

She's tested Jim on a number of associates who think that they're important enough to meet with Moriarty. He's good. He can change his apparent nature in the blink of an eye, and he can be far more menacing than his size would suggest. She creates a persona for Moriarty that's strictly for Sherlock, and the actor wears it well.

He practices, as he always practices Moriarty, on Moran, who he thinks is the real Moriarty. Moran is the one she trusts, and Moran is the only one who knows her true face. Moran is far too precious to risk as Moriarty's face, but he is the best last line of defence she could have. Moran works him until he's ready, until he all but really becomes this Moriarty, and then he sends him to the last test, to her.

Jim is a good employee; he doesn't question being sent to seduce a mousy little pathologist. Jim is a model employee, even knowing what he really is and how he plans to humiliate her, Molly has to look far closer than Sherlock ever will to even barely see any sign that Jim isn't who he's pretending to be. Jim is an ideal employee, even when he's realised how dangerous this really is for him, and how it may end, he is smart enough to understand that it is his best option.

She finds the perfect pieces, sets the game, and sends Sherlock his invitation.

He plays beautifully.

She starts with Carl, who got exactly what he deserved. Carl binds them together, doing far more of worth in death than he had – than he ever would have done – in life.

Sherlock takes Jim perfectly. All the little hints, all the conclusions they lead to, it's artistry. His response is slightly blunter than expected. It's more perfect than she could have hoped.

She runs off, leaving him confused. Molly Hooper is a frail creature he never meant to injure. It should remind him that he's not like other people, that he doesn't understand normal people, that they don't think like him, that he'd like someone who does (She does, she's yearned for it).

Later, soon, it should remind him to reexamine what he thinks is plain in front of him.

For the second puzzle, the clue is in the name. One day, in the far distant future, she will reveal her other face. He'll see two faces of Moriarty before he's dead. She has faith he'll like the joke once he gets it.

By the third round, the rules of play are clearly established. She assumes that will be enough to make him think he has an advantage. She wants to teach him to consider his 'advantages' carefully.

She tells him at the beginning that this one is defective. He can't win, or rather, if he does win, he can't save the hostage. She lays the clues out for him – a geriatric, broken and alone enough that no one as much as reports her missing, therefore unlikely to have fear for her mortality; able to identify Moriarty by voice and therefore too close to be allowed to live; "defective" as though a game as clearly and cleverly planned as this would involve a piece that brought Moriarty disadvantage – she warns of the trap, but he doesn't pick up on it or he doesn't care. She knows him well enough to pick the former. In his defence, she hasn't given him time to sleep.

She makes it simple, repetitive so that he'll solve it quickly. He understands the rules and he plays her for time. She's sure that he'll dwell on it, that he'll turn his actions over and over in his mind, think of whether he could have done anything differently to win properly. It will probably happen after the fifth pip, when he's had time to rest and revel in the victory of his own survival. Eventually he'll realise that he could never have prevented the old woman's death, but if he'd paid more attention he could have let it occur at a time when the families filling the neighbouring flats were dispersed at work and school, rather than tucked snugly into bed.

He'll never tell anyone what he's realised, she's sure, but she likes to imagine his expression as the knowledge dawns.

The fourth one is a child, and he is inot/i supposed to win that round. He is supposed to listen as a little boy counts the seconds to his own death. He is supposed to break and beg and plead and be left holding the same dead line he'd held for the last one. He is supposed to taste the failure, bitter in his throat, and then he and the little broken soldier are meant to figure it out much, much later. They're meant to remember that a careless blog entry revealed a weakness and that that weakness was exploited to the tune of a dying child. It's meant to fester into a seed of mutual guilt and blame. It's meant to poison them.

She's shocked Sherlock gets it. She almost didn't get it. She doesn't begrudge it. She's almost as enthused by it as he is. The thirty million pounds she would have spent on making Sherlock Holmes feel like shit are spent on making him feel fantastic instead, and it's worth it. It's more than worth it because it proves that she has a worthy adversary who can outwit her at her own game even when he's given every disadvantage. It proves she has someone worth playing the game with, and that's what gives the game life. It proves that he's perfect.

She lets him call Moriarty out for the fifth pip. If this is love, then she falls a little bit deeper into it when he asks Moriarty to the pool.

She takes John for the fifth pip. It's far easier than it should be, but, for Sherlock, seeing him strapped into semtex is clearly more effective than any lecture on taking better care of his things. Her cameras don't capture his face perfectly, but his voice is more than expressive enough.

Jim has his directions – directions and contingency directions – and he improvises beautifully what's too human to be directed. He is an overtly unstable madman. He lets Sherlock see that he is putting on a farce for him, and he lets touches of other layers shine through.

It pains her, physically, that Sherlock so often doesn't look beneath the surface. He can see so much on it that he must find lower layers unnecessary. He has been refusing to see what her work means even when she lays it out in front of him. It's infuriating, and he needs to learn better. Jim Moriarty is going to be an object lesson in the necessity of layered observation.

The panicked relief writ large in every movement once Jim leaves John and Sherlock is hilarious. It's all very sweet. She hates them for it, a little.

Jim reenters, and lets himself be called away, and Sherlock responds to the reverse psychology with all the finesse of an eight-year-old. He's warned off and reeled in closer than ever.

He is ripe for exploitation.

Moriarty is contacted by Irene Adler. Irene is ripe and perfect in her own way. Irene has photographs, and Moriarty buys them for more profit than Irene will ever realise. Irene is an agreeable associate, and when Moriarty provides her with a more exciting, mutually beneficial game to play, Irene agrees to the task.

It takes a lot of preparation. It's a precise dance, though not choreographed as exactingly as any of Jim's.

The groundwork is lain and the dice are rolled. Irene informs the American and British governments of certain of her resources, and she and Moriarty wait for them to make a responding move.

It doesn't take long. The Americans come after her in their fashion, and the British, guided by the right whispers in the right ears, come after her in theirs.

Irene is impressive. She's striking. Molly could not have been handed a better actor for the part.

Molly is a little disappointed to hear that Irene drugging him doesn't inspire Sherlock to start drugging himself again. But she's also a little proud of him.

Irene does what she does well. She provides Sherlock with daily reminders of her existence; she becomes a presence in his life for months. Then she prepares to die.

There is a woman whose earthly crimes are not much greater than looking very similar to The Woman and getting involved with the sort of man who'd post naked pictures of her on the internet after she left him. She's been missing for months; it would do no one any good for a woman who looks like Irene to disappear at the same time a body looking like Irene's appeared. That woman is taken out of the comfortable but restrictive room she'd been held in, and she is taken off the drugs that have kept her docile for months – the remnants of the drugs in her system won't matter, the body will be assigned to Molly Hooper and her tests won't record anything untoward – so that she will be lucid enough to fight back realistically when her face is smashed in.

Molly manages to get a few free pictures from Irene into the bargain. It would be a shame, after all, if the poor woman's face were turned into soup for nothing because Irene had revealed some memorable aspect of personal grooming to Sherlock and not to Moriarty.

Moriarty has the other woman's nose smashed into her brain, and then further, and then Molly heads off to a Christmas party.

Molly is pathetic. The "dear lord" that announces her arrival isn't quiet enough to fail to reach her. Her awkwardness is all but a physical presence that increases on a trajectory of magnitudes. Sherlock pulls it along. Sherlock humiliates Molly to the point where anything Molly's done to humiliate herself is forgotten, her own social inadequacies dwarfed by the ones he has held up to show off. She is his victim.

He is reminded, publicly, of how fundamentally ignorant he is about interpersonal relationships. He may catch certain indications, grasp some conventions, but he is lacking. He doesn't understand how people work, and the only person foolish enough to have that sort of interest in him is the most pathetic person in the room. The only other person – a person who may not be a fool, who may be able to both interest and handle him – must shine as a conscious alternative, must grow more precious, and must become a loss more deeply to be mourned.

And she is mourned, deeply. The loss devastates him.

Molly is there to see it, first when he receives Irene's present and then when his fears are confirmed. It's not her best Christmas ever, but it is a very nice one.

Sherlock is given just enough time to start to mourn, to think over and regret what might have been.

Then it is time for the glorious reveal.

That does not go as planned.

Molly blames Irene. Irene is incautious. Irene lets herself be followed. Irene stops playing by the rules.

The plan is this: Irene takes John away and confides in him. She convinces him to keep her secret. She convinces him that knowing the truth would be too dangerous for Sherlock, and explains how it could also be more painful. She convinces him that she needs the phone taken care of. It would not be difficult; Irene is very convincing and John is not at his most cautious around beautiful women.

The plan is that John will, at least, keep Irene's survival a secret. Providing her with the phone would be nice, but it's unnecessary. She has no need for John to persist in his silence; he only needs to keep the secret long enough for Sherlock to find out elsewhere, and to find out that John knew.

If there is any betrayal that can drive John and Sherlock apart, this must be it. Surely Sherlock would not be able to stand knowing that John had let him sink into despair – to become visibly, pathetically, emotionally wrecked – while he had information that would have prevented that.

It should, at the least, drive a wedge between them. It could, if he reacted as she hoped, push him, after everything, to start taking drugs again.

She has, stupidly, explained her reasoning, through Jim, to Irene. This is the excuse Irene uses for going off track and 'letting' John convince her to tell Sherlock she's alive. Irene says she wants to do this with Sherlock at his best, as though he could ever be at his best while quaking with fear at any sign of female sexuality directed at him. She says that she doesn't need Sherlock to be impaired to win their little game of wits – the one she's playing at Moriarty's direction.

Irene doesn't understand that this is not about what Irene needs or wants. Irene forgets that this is a bargain, that she gets the British government and its resources prostrate at her feet and Moriarty gets Sherlock disgraced and distanced from everyone that matters to him, that she gets him on the verge of broken, to be built better.

Irene will be made to remember, but there's no need to scrap an entire – otherwise successful – plan just because one aspect of it has gone awry. Apart from John's lack of betrayal, the plan flows smoothly. Better than smoothly. He texts her.

Even so, Molly is angry. She doesn't want the plan to fail. Bringing Mycroft Holmes to his knees is an outstanding achievement, even if it's done with Irene as a figurehead. Still. Still. Her anger makes her foolish. She finds Sherlock x-raying the phone and asks if it's his girlfriend's, as she should, and then goes further. It's not much, an implication that people do silly things, but one that he grasps on to. She regrets it immediately; she can't let her snit ruin the plan. He grasps that the passcode may be a joke, but he enters the wrong one, not the one that seemed so obvious – so funny – to her and Irene. He seems to let go of the idea entirely after that. If anything, she's more surely assured the plan's success. She knows, after that small panic at least, where her priorities lie.

The plan goes forward and Irene goes back to him with declarations of trust, pleas for help, and the promise of gratitude.

Molly is told of how quickly he solved the puzzle. It is more quickly than she did, but then, she had hardly been trying to impress anyone, so she's not going for be hard on herself.

For a moment, the Holmes brothers are defeated.

And then it all falls apart. Irene runs to Moriarty for protection. She is reminded of her failure to hold up her end of the bargain. She is reminded of the importance of not breaking the rules in stupid ways when playing with Moriarty.

Irene runs farther, all the way to the terrorists she helped tip off. They don't approve of her either.

They send her to her death, and from what Molly gathers, the men sent to execute her are never seen or heard from again.

That's fine. Irene is not the sort of woman who can go unnoticed for long. She'll pop back up again, and when she does it will only be a matter of who gets to her first. She's much more interesting for having survived her execution, so when she does Moriarty will enter the race. If her suspicions about how Irene survived are confirmed, she'll send Sherlock a souvenir to let him know that Moriarty doesn't leave loose ends hanging.

In the meantime, she keeps busy.

She sends Jim – so well trained and really so agreeable – off to Mycroft, who can only do so much with him.

Jim comes back full of stories. Beautiful, priceless stories. He has paid with information that will help the government track down and trim several branches of her organisaion that have grown unruly and are pushing on to unmanagable. The only regrettable aspect is that, in his dealings with Mycroft Holmes, Jim will unavoidably have revealed enough to make Mycroft suspect that Jim is not alone at the head of the organisation, or perhaps, at the head at all.

Jim comes back, and he tells his stories, and he prepares himself for the end of his.

Jim can be immature, but he is not stupid. That assessment means something, coming from her. She'd given him a choice. He was going to end up with his image plastered across newspapers all over the country. She let him decide what for. Rather than his real crimes, he opted to be known as the world's foremost criminal mastermind. He knows how that story ends.

It's Sergeant Sally Donovan who lets her know that the time is right. Molly does so much work for them that she's built something of a rapport with the police. Sally Donovan, who has never had anything nice to say about Sherlock, even knowing that Molly fancies him, tells her, in a tone that not only lacks its usual revulsion but carries some small amount of amused affection, that Sherlock had worn a hat. They had bought him a hat for a press conference, and he'd worn it, and his apparent newfound ability to accept light teasing had started to pull him over from 'freak' to 'one of us.'

The shifting perception of Sherlock is what makes it the perfect time. Sally is not the only one to feel her opinions changing, but she is one of the most important. Molly knows Sally, and she sees how unsure of herself the other woman can be. Sally needs to be right; her self-perception rests too strongly on her ability to judge people. This is her time of turmoil. This is a time when a shove in either direction will have resounding consequences. If she is pushed to accept Sherlock she will; she should accept him more completely than she would most others because she'll have already proven to herself that any doubts in him are misplaced. If she's pushed to conclude that Sherlock isn't trustworthy then she'll grasp on to that conclusion as fiercely and vocally as she can; she'll insist on his deceitfulness to the point that she can convince herself that bshe/b'd never been fool enough to have doubted it. Among the most potent of Sally Donovan's fears is being taken in, being taken for a fool. It's a hard fear to hide, and ever so exploitable.

Jim comes back, and she sends him out into the action again. Say what you will about men like him, but he's very good at presentation.

The trial goes splendidly. Sherlock continues to demonstrate his skill at reading what he needs off people's surfaces and, even when it would be dearly useful, not bothering to look past that. Sherlock continues to see what makes sense; he sees the patterns no one else can, and even after the manner in which she'd introduced Jim, he still fails to look under them as long as they make sense. Sherlock continues to demonstrate his lacking social graces. He does this to the degree that she would worry he knows exactly how unimportant his – or anyone's – testimony is, but he might know, and it would affect nothing.

Mr. James Moriarty is, somewhat accurately, acquitted of the charges.

Jim toddles off to meet with Sherlock. Jim flirts in a way that doesn't scare Sherlock off. Jim says things that don't make sense unless someone looks beneath the surface, and Sherlock, though he looks further than he has before, still doesn't appear to look deep enough.

She has gone looking for potential reporters to use to break the story of Sherlock's duplicity. She'd wasted her time. Kitty Riley had approached Jim Moriarty after the trial and given him her number. Molly looks into her; the furious, scorned woman is everything she needs. Jim adds Richard Brook to his roster and helps Kitty find every reason to believe in him. There's something childlike in her naivety, but really, Molly thinks that Jim gets off mostly on tricking her. Richard Brook worms his way into Kitty's heart, and Moriarty disappears.

The assassins swarm Sherlock, his new best friends. The police are not terribly observant on that front, but when the ambassador's children go missing, that they notice.

Molly helps. She gets to watch him up close. She loves it. His mutter of "I-O-U" is a more than adequate salve for his immediate dismissal of her. Even if he can't remember who's standing beside him, Moriarty occupies his thoughts. She doesn't mind; she'd dismiss Molly too. That's the point.

He dismisses her, and she grinds that in. Underscores it. Molly Hooper is dismissible. Her unimportance is what makes her important. Molly Hooper goes unnoticed, which is not to say unremarked upon, but unconsidered. She emphasises it to a man who will soon realise that he needs all the hidden resources on hand. She emphasises it along with an observation that's not clever enough to impress him, but is relevant enough to remind him that she cares, and that she may be worth noticing. She emphasises it in association with a dying man, and lets him do with that what he will. She offers her help, and then she runs off and emphasises that no one, not even she, expects him to find value in Molly Hooper.

Sherlock saves Hansel and Gretel with what must, to the observing police, look like superhuman intuition. He is less a knight in shining armour than a fairy godmother, even if a terrifying one.

Assuming that Sherlock doesn't screw this up – assuming that he doesn't die – there may be some moment when she lets him find out exactly who and what the man he thought was Jim Moriarty really was. Sherlock probably wouldn't find anything about the use of children's stories in Jim's swan song particularly funny, but Jim does. He's served her well, Molly can give him this much.

The clues all line up. Sally is smart enough to know that something's wrong, and reactive enough to fall solidly into the trap lain for her. Her suspicions about Sherlock are confirmed, and she runs to shout it from the rooftops before anyone can suspect she'd doubted.

Molly is invested in seeing what will happen when the storm has calmed, when this game is over and Sally has time to really think about her conclusions, about what it would mean for Sherlock to be a fake. Sally should see how she went wrong. She should shudder over Sherlock; she cares enough to blame herself. Molly can't wait to watch that; she'll be there for her.

Sherlock and John are forced to run. They hunt down Jim, Richard Brook, who's told the truth with just enough detail changed to make it burn. They look mad.

The trap snaps shut.

Sherlock turns to Molly Hooper, and tells her that he needs her to save his life.

He does, so she does.

It's fun.

His plan is dangerous, more dangerous than it needs to be, but then he's panicked and he hasn't had all the time to think about it that she has.

She loves his plan. They can do it.

Sherlock runs John off and treads up to the roof to play dumb. Sherlock pretends to be stupid and Jim pretends to not know he's pretending.

Sherlock pretends to think the key is real to get irrefutable confirmation that it's fake, that he not only doesn't have it, but that it never existed at all. The recording of this will be used to dissuade the attention of the assassins and other unsavory characters who'd flock around him for it on his glorious resurrection. Sherlock delves on, playing enough of an idiot to get Jim to declare his own identify as Moriarty and describe his creation of a fake one, just as Molly and Moran trained him to.

Sherlock pretends that he doesn't know he'll have to die. Listening to the recording later, she has to say, Jim is the far superior actor.

Sherlock isn't pretending when he tells Jim that he doesn't have to die. Sherlock tries to worm his way out of the most dangerous part of their plan. Jim remains true to it, Moriarty to the end, never failing, never revealing his station in the game even in the last stretch. He's grateful to and terrified of Moriarty to the end, and he's wise to be. He chose the easier way out. Jim plays his finishing move and leaves Sherlock with no choice.

Sherlock dawdles almost too long. He phones his friend, confesses enough to completely exonerate John of any suspected complicity in the alleged fraud detective's plans. The recording of that, if needed, can be released before the rest. She is fascinated with how deeply Sherlock cares. He is lucky that Jim wasn't really Moriarty, that the assassins are waiting on a code to shoot, not one to refrain from shooting. Sherlock wavers on the edge of the ledge so long that if they were there might have been some unpleasant consequences.

Molly collects the evidence and cleans up the mess. It's really very flattering; no one has ever freely trusted her as much as Sherlock trusts Molly Hooper.

Unless he does something to seriously disappoint her in the very near future, he is right to. She should want him up and running again almost as much as he does. He trusts her now, completely, probably more than he trusts anyone. She is not going to let that change.

And so Molly Hooper, as is so often the case, is left with a dead man.

Sherlock is grateful to her. It's new, and very nice, and she suspects it will be quick to fade. At least the expression of it will be.

He should never forget that she was instrumental in saving his life. That's the sort of favour that garners a lot of good will.

Even so, Sherlock's good will is not that of a normal person's.

"What do you want?" he doesn't quite snap at her after she's stared at him for longer than usual.

"You in bed," she responds, then makes a show of correction before he can voice a reply, "not mine. I mean, no, I mean that you need to rest. You look exhausted. I don't," she bunches in on herself, vulnerable and defensive at once, "I don't want you to have to be tired too. You've been through enough."

He looks at her out of the corner of his eye and flashes a quick grin. "I'd say I look rather spry, for a suicide."

That's good. He's never really joked with her before. He finally sees her, not as she is, not even as an equal, but as worth something beyond her usefulness. It's nice. She is going to make sure that continues to happen.

He tells her that he has a place – or places – where he will be safe. He doesn't tell her where and he doesn't explain what he intends to do. That's fine. Molly knows well enough what he intends: he intends to dismantle Moriarty's network and destroy Moriarty's legacy. What he will do is find the branches of Moriarty's organisation that have become unneeded, unprofitable, and unwieldy. He will snip them. He will do her work for her. Her reach is far enough that there's an organisation's worth that needs snipping. He shouldn't notice what he misses, and she's still around to control the damage if he notices anything he shouldn't.

She begs him to keep in contact. She claims she doesn't even need clear contact, just recurrent indications that he's alright.

He has an immediate aversion to the prospect. He claims it would be too dangerous.

But Sherlock Holmes, who has only so recently come to understand that he has friends, doesn't really want to completely separate from them. He is not so difficult to convince.

Sherlock Holmes is all but broken. He has no name, he has no life, and he has no one but Molly. She is the only friend he can rely on right now. She is the link he has to what he wants back. That is a good association; she can work with that.

Sherlock Holmes fakes his death and goes running off to avenge himself. He comes to see her as something less and more than she is. He comes to rely on her.

This, for all that games that Moriarty wants to play, that she's sure she'll continue want to play for ages, this is the most fun – the best – asset she could ever have acquired.

The game goes on.


End file.
